


Paint the Dusty Air

by UnabashedBird



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Drinking, Canon-typical language, Character Death Fix, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Multi, Referenced Eliot/Quentin/Arielle, Referenced Quentin/Alice - Freeform, Referenced Quentin/Arielle, implied/referenced suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2020-05-02 08:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19195417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnabashedBird/pseuds/UnabashedBird
Summary: Sometimes old stories aren't just told, they're lived.So when Eliot gets a chance to succeed where Orpheus failed and lead Quentin out from the Underworld, he takes it.And when Penny and Kady are offered the Lord and Ladyship of the Underworld, they accept.But knowing the story doesn't make living it any easier.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The whole queliot Orpheus/Eurydice thing is practically a genre in this fandom at this point, yeah? So this is my version. There will be Angst and Feelings and eventual Happiness, and more than just Q and El getting mixed up in mythology along the way.
> 
> I feel like it's only fair to warn everyone that I have no idea how long this will be or how frequent I'll be updating--I have an outline, but I also, sadly have quite a bit of Life Happenings right now, but I really wanted to start posting as a way of motivating myself to keep writing.
> 
> Tags will be added/updated should the need arise.
> 
> Title is from the Through Juniper Vale song "The Last Time."

Eliot's eyes fluttered open, the room slowly coming into focus.

"El?"

He turned his head and there was Margo, his Bambi, reaching for his hand. He glanced around, desperately hoping that Quentin would be there, too, so he could finally . . . there were tear tracks down Margo's cheeks. And fresh tears falling.

“What?" he asked, hoping she was simply overcome with emotion at seeing him again. It had happened before, after all.

"El, I don't think now is the best time--"

"Margo, what happened?" he interrupted, terrified of the shaking in her voice.

She took a deep breath. "They had to go to the Mirror World to get rid of the Monsters once and for all. Someone tried to stop them, so Q," and the way her breath hitched on his name stopped Eliot's heart in his chest. No. "Q did a spell, just a minor mending so they could do what they had to do, but spells go wrong in there, they bounce around and get real deadly real fast. Sweetie, Q didn't make it."

Eliot closed his eyes. There was a great primal scream inside of him but he had no strength with which to unleash it. He was vaguely aware of the healers moving around him, checking vitals, giving Margo instructions he couldn't hear because the world had whited out to the shrieking nothingness in his mind.

"I'm so sorry," Margo murmured, and he opened his eyes. "What, you think I didn't know?"

"But he didn't. He died thinking I didn't--" They had him on the good stuff for the pain, but it didn't stop lances of agony from shooting through his torso at the sobs that tore through his body, despite his feeble efforts to contain them. Margo crawled into the bed next to him, putting her arms around him and bracing his torso with a pillow. Physically, it helped a little.

But his physical self, which had seemed so important all those months he was trapped without access to it, was now completely incidental. The pain it felt was incidental, next to the pain of his shattered heart.

He buried his face in Margo’s hair and wept.

 

Eliot held the peach to his lips and inhaled before tossing it into the flames, and something broke in Quentin. It didn’t matter that he was dead, this was all still happening, and—a hand gripped his arm. He hadn’t even realized he’d tried to go to them again.

“I know it sucks, and right now there’s nothing I can say that will make it suck less, but time does heal, and the dead have nothing but time.”

“I guess if anyone would know, it would be you. But at least you knew how each other felt. I thought . . . I thought it was over. Just that other life, not this one. He said it wasn’t real here. He lied to me.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes people do that when they’re scared.”

“I thought this was supposed to be about getting closure, or—?”

“Nah, man. This is about helping you understand yourself. Not necessarily the same thing. But if I could reiterate, do you really think you wanted to leave all this? I mean, I read your book, I watched the highlight reel, you have been destroying yourself for months for just the chance to save Eliot, even though you thought you’d never be together. And you think that the second you did it and got that thing out of him, you just turned around and killed yourself? No way. Besides, Alice isn’t what I’d call a consolation prize, know what I’m saying?”

“I feel like that’s probably offensive.”

“I just mean, you thought the Eliot door was closed, and the Alice door was opening back up. Sure, you’d never have gone through it if Eliot was an option for you, not now, but as far as you knew he wasn’t, so you opened yourself up to forgiveness and third chances and it was beautiful. Nothing wrong with that. I hope that someday Kady opens herself up that way.”

“Really?”

“Why not? I’ll be here.”

“Waiting for a little post-mortem polyamory?”

“Maybe. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“There’s the old Penny.”

“Ha ha.”

Q looked at them all. His friends. His  _family_. “I’m not ready.”

“No worries. That’s what the Underworld is for. But if we’ve answered the burning question, we do have to be getting back.”

“You’re the boss, I guess.”

Back in Penny's office, the full force of what he'd seen, and what it meant to him, hit Quentin. He bent over, elbows on knees, head in hands. "Oh my God, Penny, oh my God, I'm such an idiot. How could I be such an idiot?"

"I mean . . ." he cut himself off. "Damn, Coldwater, you really know how to bring the old me back. Sorry, I should be more professional. What I  _should_  say is, can you elaborate?"

"Alice. I. I didn't really want to get back together with her. I thought I did, because I was lonely and in a huge depressive spiral with no end in sight. And then we did that spell so we could get the information we needed and it reminded me of how things used to be so there were all these powerful echoes of old feelings. But it wasn't real. I don't feel that way about her. I haven't since . . ."

"Since what, Quentin?"

Quentin looked up. "Since the Mosaic."

"Because . . . ?"

"Because I'm in love with Eliot, you asshole."

Penny smiled. "Feel any better?"

" _No_. He . . . we . . . he said . . . he said it wasn't real. Not in this timeline. And it made sense that he would feel that way. So I tried . . . God, why am I telling  _you_  this?"

"Because this is where you spill your secrets taken to the grave, and I'm the one who's here to listen. Is it better or worse that we were friends, sort of?"

"I think mostly it's worse that it's you."

"Fair. Still."

Quentin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Fine. I'm still in love with Eliot. I tried to get over him, after he told me it couldn't work in this timeline, 'not when we have a choice,' he said. But I do have a choice, and it's him. Was. Would have been. Fuck. I really don't want to be dead."

"Understandable. I didn't either, when I first got down here."

"But now . . . you . . . do?"

"I wouldn't put it quite like that. It's more about accepting things as they are and then choosing to make the most of it."

"Of being dead."

"Yes."

"Sure. OK."

"Getting a little off track, aren't we?"

"What am I supposed to say? Eliot and I had a beautiful life together in an alternate timeline. He said it wouldn't work in this timeline. I tried to accept that. He got possessed by a terrifying toddler-monster more powerful than any god, and I spent the absolute worst, and it turns out final, months of my life watching that  _thing_  walk around in his body while I tried to figure out how to save him, because more than anything I couldn't lose him. Not him. And I did save him, but I died doing it, and only now that I'm  _dead_ do I learn that he might have had a change of heart and we might have had a chance. But somehow I'm just supposed to live with that. Or, not live, exist? Fuck.”

“Nobody said it was fair. Not life, and certainly not death. It just is.”

“That is . . . not helpful.” A thought struck Quentin. “Hey, can I see my dad? Is he still in the Underworld?”

“Let’s find out.” Penny opened up a laptop Q hadn’t noticed before and performed a search. “Sorry, man. Looks like he’s already moved on.”

“Of course he has. He always was well-adjusted. What about Julia’s friends, from when we came here to get her Shade? Or, I don’t know, Benedict?”

“Do you really want to see any of those people? I mean, Benedict’s great, and still here, but I’m not sure that’s what you want.”

“I thought we’d established what I want,” Q said sharply. “And that it wasn’t fucking possible.”

“No, you’re right. I’ll take you to see Benedict.”

“Great.”

 

Eliot sat by the bonfire, shaky and sore and wishing for back support, but too utterly drained to contemplate moving.

Margo’s hand landed gently on his shoulder. “El, we should get you to bed. You’re exhausted.” Thank god for Bambi. He nodded, and maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising that Alice stood and supported his right side while Margo took his left, but it was. He didn’t know what to do with the solidarity between them, since they’d both undo its cause in a heartbeat if they could. 

“You don’t have to—“ he began.

“I want to. Unless you don’t want me to," Alice told him.

“I can probably use all the help I can get.”

“We all could.”

“Let’s not get metaphorical at this hour.”

Alice’s mouth quirked in a terrible little almost-smile that got nowhere near her eyes. “Let’s just get you somewhere comfortable. You probably shouldn’t be up and about.”

“Like I was going to miss . . . that.”

She and Margo both squeezed his arms at the same time. “I’m glad you came,” Alice said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re very generous.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just selfish enough to appreciate not being the only one who feels the way I feel.”

Eliot let that hang in the air for a long moment before he said, “I’m not sure I’d put it . . . quite like that.”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not. For about a thousand reasons. And I really don’t know if I’m OK with pretending like it is, especially since if Q—“ he swallowed hard. “If the world was as it should be, we’d probably be hating each other’s guts right now, at least a little bit.”

“Probably. But the world isn’t as it should be, and we both feel it the way we feel it, so here we are. And if it helps, I wouldn't  _want_  to hate your guts. You're right that I still probably would, some, but I wouldn't want to."

"Like I said, generous. But since we're being honest, I'll just remind you that I haven't had the time to process your redemption arc the way the others have. Of course, on the other hand, I didn't have to live under the Library's reign of terror, either, so I suppose it comes out even."

"It doesn't have to. What I did was wrong. It was cowardly and wrong. I know that now, and I . . . well, until recently I'd have said I'll never be more sorry for anything else in my entire life, but that's not true any more."

"Just goes to show," Eliot said, as they made their slow, painful way back to the infirmary. He didn't need to be there any more, strictly speaking, but there's no way in hell he's sleeping in a first year dorm, and he couldn't go in the Physical Cottage without a panic attack, so the infirmary it was until he figured out what to do next.

"Goes to show what?" Alice asked, glancing at him.

"That the universe will always find new ways to fuck with you."

"Yeah, but that's what makes us magicians, isn't it? We find ways to fuck it right back." She paused when Margo snorted. "I think that came out wrong."

"I knew what you meant," Eliot said, noting as if from a distance that he wasn't even tempted to catch Margo's eye and share a smirk at Alice's accidentally suggestive word choice. He could feel her there, waiting for the connection, but it just wasn't in him, so he left her hanging. "It's a vicious circle."

They didn't talk any more until they said good night to Alice at the infirmary. Margo lingered after she'd helped get him undressed and as comfortable as he could be.

"Sorry," he said softly. "I know I'm not--"

"Don't," she told him, fierce and firm, even as her eyes shone wetly. "I don't expect you to act like the old you, not after everything. I'm the one who should be sorry."

"No, I don't think so."

"You want me to stay?"

"Always."

 

Alice listened while Sheila and Zelda made their pitch. She couldn't see Kady, standing a little behind her, but she could feel the other woman's tightly crossed arms and "this is bullshit" glare.

"Sorry, but no," Alice said when they'd finished, directing her response at Sheila in an attempt to remain civil. "I don't think putting me in charge is at all responsible. Besides, it sounds to me like you want to rebuild the Library exactly the way it was before, as if the nature of the system wasn't a big part of the problem in the first place. You need someone with a completely new vision, someone who understands all the ways things weren't working before so they can be different, be better, this time." She stepped to the side and back. "You should be asking Kady. After you're done grovelling at her feet, anyway." This last she directed at Zelda; she had to believe that Sheila didn't know about the true underbelly of the Library, about what they allowed to happen to Penny just so they could control him completely.

"Wait, what?" Kady said sharply, at the same moment that Zelda said "Excuse me?" in that always-polite way of hers, and Sheila exclaimed "Alice!"

"Think about it," Alice told Kady. "You're a natural leader, even if you don't want to be. You're a Hedge, and you were at Brakebills. You stayed connected to your memories of your time under that spell, so you even have some adult understanding of the nonmagical world. You want things to be fair. You want them to be better. And you'll blow shit up when that doesn't happen fast enough. Who better than you?"

"Alice, I'm  _tired_ ," Kady protested. "And it's like you said, I don't want to lead."

"Then who would you suggest? Pete?"

"Ew,  _no_."

"I'm serious, Kady. I understand you not wanting to do it, but who do you think should? You and the Hedges should have a say, no matter who ends up in charge.”

“I don’t know!  _God_. This was supposed to be over. I was supposed to get a break, Alice. Jesus!”

“Sorry. But they’re the ones who haven’t grasped the magnitude of the changes required for the Library to be able to function at all after everything it’s done.”

Sheila broke in. “But Alice, the fact that you do means that—“

“No, it doesn’t. What if I get scared again, like I did when I tried to destroy magic forever, huh? Did they tell you that that’s what I did? I’m powerful, I can’t help it, but I shouldn’t be given authority. Part of me wants to say yes, but I don’t think it’s the part I should be listening to right now.”

“She’s right,” Zelda said, cutting off Sheila’s reply. “I’ve lived my life in fear, and the results have been . . . unpleasant. We need a new perspective. And, Kady, before you dismiss the possibility out of hand, I should point out that the Library Director must of course have access to all of the Library’s branches.”

“Wait. You mean the Underworld?”

“Just so.”

Alice knew right then that Kady would do it. She might need a little time to wrap her head around the whole thing, but she would agree. It was what was best, but Alice felt her heart sink in a way that didn’t make any sense—she was still grieving Quentin, what was she doing feeling like . . . like . . .  _Like your crush just started dating someone else_  came the traitorous thought.

"It's a lot. I need time to think."

"Of course," Zelda said, as if they weren't discussing the future of a massive interdimensional organization that had a major influence on the flow of knowledge within the known universes.

"Alice," Sheila said, sounding hurt and desperate.

Alice turned to face her friend. "Whatever happens, I can't imagine there won't still be a research division, eventually. I'd be honored to work with you there, Sheila. I have a unified theory of magic I'd like to get back to, if I can. And even if I can't, I want to be your friend. If you'll have me."

"Of course I will! I know things didn't go the way you wanted, but you brought me to all this, Alice. I like you, and I want to help you. I remember what it's like to be your age and feel lost."

Alice felt her eyes go a little misty. "Thank you. But . . . I don't think I'm quite as lost as I was when we met." Her eyes cut sideways toward Kady before she could stop herself, and she blushed.

Sheila grinned and winked, and after she hugged Alice she and Zelda left.

"What the hell was that?" Kady asked.

"What was what?"

"Don't bullshit me."

"I'm not, I don't know which part you're talking about." This was true, technically.

"OK, now that you mention it, all of it."

"Do you think I was wrong?"

Kady hesitated. "Not about all of it, no. I guess I'm just surprised at you showing some actual humility. Still caring about someone whose choices you disagree with."

"Quentin," she stuttered on his name, "would say that you don't stop caring about someone just because they fuck up. I used to not understand how that was possible, but I get it now. Or, I get that I get it. I never stopped caring about him, not even when things were bad, but I couldn't admit it because it felt weak. Or, not weak, stupid. It felt stupid."

"But now?"

"It still feels stupid. But I think I've learned it's the kind of stupid I need to be sometimes."

"Well, that's something. Did you really mean all that stuff you said about me?"

"I wouldn't have said it if I didn't," Alice said, forcing herself to meet Kady's eyes.

"OK. That's certainly something to consider."

"By yourself, or over drinks?" Alice said, astonished at herself.

Kady arched an eyebrow. "Now that it's on the table, Quinn, we're definitely getting you drunk."

 

Penny wasn't sure what to think about the fact that Hades  _knocked_  on his office door. He quickly got to his feet and invited the god in.

"My lord Hades. What can I do for you?"

"You can sit, and you can listen." Penny sat, and Hades took the chair across the desk from him. "You're one of the first to know, Penny, but I'll be leaving soon."

Penny cocked his head. "You say that like this is something more than a business trip."

“It is. I'm retiring. Abandoning my post. Moving on."

"I didn't know you could do that," Penny said slowly.

"There's some precedent. I’m tired, Penny. And we’re keeping it quiet until we decide what to do about it, but the monsters killed Persephone. Being me isn’t something I’m much interested in without her, complicated as our relationship was. I’d like to try something else.”

“OK. Why tell me?”

“Remember that destiny I told you you have?”

“Yes?”

"Gods of our caliber are shaped by human belief, whether we want to be or not. My going away will not make belief in the Lord of the Underworld disappear. There will be a vacancy, a power vacuum. I want you to fill it."

Penny stared. "You want me to . . . become a god?"

"Yes."

"Why me?" Penny asked before he could stop himself.

Hades leaned forward.  "Why not you? You fit a great deal of life into your relatively short time on Earth. Once you committed yourself to it, your work here has been exemplary. And I have no intention of leaving a white man in charge--you and I both know there's more than enough of that in the universe. So why not you?"

"I don't--"

"One more thing I should probably mention. Kady has been offered the Library Directorship. She will be able to come down here. And given your feelings for one another, there is a ritual I believe we could perform that would . . . put you on an even footing."

"The fuck does that mean?"

Hades smiled. "There's the Penny I first met. I was beginning to worry you were too far gone, too diluted by this place, and I would have to change my plans. It means, Penny, that when that monster killed Persephone, the Underworld lost its Queen, a situation which, due to the construction of the place, in untenable. Persephone's divine energies dispersed when she died, but given the proper candidate, they could be gathered once more."

"You want me to be a god and Kady to be a goddess, and for us to take over you and Our Lady's jobs."

"Yes."

"Just like that?" Penny narrowed his eyes. "Did you know Our Lady was going to die?" Hades raised his eyebrows, as though waiting for Penny to put the pieces together. "Shit. Cassandra."

"Indeed."

"But if you believed her, why couldn't you stop it from happening?"

"Stop Persephone from doing exactly what she wants to do, no matter the risks? That, dear boy, was always beyond my power," Hades said, and for the first time Penny heard the sorrow in his voice, the deep aching loss.

"Fair enough. So, godhood. Do I get a choice? Does Kady?"

"Of course."

"Good to know. But, uh, I'd really prefer to, you know, talk it out with her. Is that--"

He hadn't finished the question before he was standing in an expensive-looking penthouse, watching Kady and Alice make out on the couch.

 

“I’m sorry, Bambi, but I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” Margo had that tone, and he couldn’t blame her, not really.

“The epic ‘what’s wrong with Fillory this time?’ thing. Reclaiming thrones, righting wrongs. I can’t do it. You were always better at it than me, anyway.”

“So what, you’re gonna make me do this alone?”

“I think we both know that nobody makes you do anything, least of all me. But I need time. I need . . . I need to go home.”

“Well how exactly do you plan to do that?”

“Just follow me.”

It was slow going—even with magic flowing freely again his body wasn’t all the way healed yet. Massive trauma, blah blah.

He should’ve realized the cottage would be in ruins. But it went through his body like a shockwave, and he fell hard to his knees, breath hissing through his teeth at the jolt of pain in his torso.

“El—,” Margo began, but he just shook his head, staring at what was left of the Mosaic.

Fifty years. The beauty of all life. Who gets proof of concept like that? But he threw it away, and Q was dead, and he and Margo were stuck in Fillory's future, and there was nothing in him but an ocean of grief.

“What do you wanna do?” she asked softly, sitting down beside him and pulling him to her. “Huh? Rebuild it, put up a memorial, what? We’re in the future, so it’s not like there’s a rush. The past will be there when we get back. Which we will.”

“I don’t want to do anything. I just want Q.”

“I know, sweetie. I know.”

He shoved away from her, ignoring the pain. “No, you don’t.”

“So tell me.”

“There aren’t words, Margo.” A few tears escaped and slipped down his cheeks. “There aren’t words,” he whispered again.

He looked around the desolate site, and a memory surfaced.

_“Goddammit Eliot, are you kidding me right now? That’s weeks of records you just spilled fucking booze all over!”_

_“I’ll probably be sorry later, but ‘m really drunk right now, so.”_

_“Yeah, obviously. These are ruined.”_

_Eliot tried to pick one of the pages up but only smeared it further. “Oops.”_

_“Seriously?”_

_“No, look, it’s fine, I’ll go stick my head in the rain barrel and then redo them. It can’t be that hard.”_

_“No, I’ll do it, you go sleep it off. Away from the record books.”_

_“You know there’s a spell for damage-proofing paper. Maybe we should use it, since we have kind of a lot and it’s sort of important if we ever want to go home and finish this stupid quest.”_

_“Yeah, great. So glad you’re bringing this up now, and not, I don’t know, before you made a mess and wasted booze.”_

_Eliot sat up abruptly, taking the fiasco seriously for the first time. “Shit, I did waste booze! Uh-oh.” He leaned forward and retched, the sudden motion having upset his drunken equilibrium._

_Q rolled his eyes but came and sat by Eliot anyway, half supporting him and rubbing his back while his body finished deciding whether it was going to hurl its guts out or let him swallow what had risen to the back of his throat._

_“OK, now I’m sorry,” Eliot groaned._

_“Yeah, this quest has really screwed your ability to hold your liquor,” Q said, and when Eliot turned to glare at him there was a little smile on Q’s face. “I’m still mad at you, though.”_

_“No, you’re not,” Eliot said, and let himself collapse until he was on his side with his head in Q’s lap. It was the only way he could stop himself from kissing him._

They’d been there for, what, six months at that point? They weren’t even together yet and Eliot was already having occasional, treasonous thoughts of never wanting their quest to end, to just stay there with Q forever, even if it did mean never seeing Margo or a decent bottle of wine ever again.

They’d enchanted all their records of attempted designs once Eliot had sobered up. He wondered what Q had done with them after Eliot died. From old age, of all things. Not that old, by urban 21st-century standards, but respectably old for someone who spent his life working outdoors. The kind of life he’d run from. Turned out it wasn’t the life, it was the people. He'd been happier, more at peace, than he'd thought was possible, with Quentin. Arielle and Teddy, too. God,  _Teddy_. From the day he was born Teddy had been as much his son as Arielle and Quentin’s. They’d all told him so whenever he let his insecurities get the best of him, but in rare moments of being honest with himself, he knew that no matter what anyone, including and especially his own traitorous self, said, Teddy was his. It was written on his heart, inscribed in his bones. A child. Grandchildren.

Quentin by his side through all of it.

He didn’t pretend to understand time paradoxes, but if they remembered that life, and if Q was the one who gave Jane Chatwin the key that allowed her to create the time loops that they all lived through, didn’t that mean that the reality where he grew old and died and was happy at least overlapped with this one? This terrible reality where he was young and miserable and wondering how he could perhaps avoid growing old, preferably without breaking Margo’s heart in the process. What would Quentin have done with all those enchanted notebooks, full of mosaic designs they spent a lifetime trying?

He glanced around, overlaying his memories with the ruins. Cottage, garden, day bed, table and chairs. Arielle's grave.

He scrambled towards the spot on hands and knees, ignoring Margo's protests and attempts to help. On a hunch he performed a summoning spell, and the record books, still protected by the enchantments they’d put on them, emerged slowly from the earth.

Eliot looked at the pile, and it dawned on him that Q had probably buried him near this spot. And what about after? Did Q stay here, or did he move in with Teddy? Was Q buried here, too?

What happened in the mirror world had left no body for them to bury or burn. But surely this was the final resting place of the one Quentin Coldwater who grew old and died peacefully. Surely the very soil on which Eliot sat was mixed with elements that had once made up Q’s body. Q’s, and Eliot’s, and Arielle’s, too. The decayed remnants of a beautiful life.

Eliot dug his hands into the dirt, squeezing fistfuls of it as if by doing so he could somehow cross timelines and worlds and make it home to Q.

“El?” Margo asked softly, coming up behind him. “Talk to me, sweetie. What is all this?"

He just shook his head, unable to speak. Margo knelt down and picked up one of the books, flipping through it. "You nerds," she said, no bite to the epithet.

"Well, we had to keep track," Eliot managed. "We thought it was the design that mattered. Should have realized--" his voice caught, and he found himself folding forward towards the ground, not from the pain of his injury, though that was ever-present, but from the weight of what had been and was now forever lost.

Margo rubbed his back. "C'mon, give yourself a break. Who would expect 'the beauty of all life' to be fucking literal? Questers literally living out their entire lives here just for one of the keys? I mean if it weren't for Jane and her time bullshit that would've been it for you two."

"Maybe it should have been," Eliot said before he could stop himself.

Margo's hand ceased its soothing rubbing at his back and fisted in his jacket. She sucked a breath in through her nose. "So that's where you're at, huh?"

He nodded against the cool soil.

"OK, well, that's not great."

He knew she was choosing her words with utmost care, that it was taking all her self control not to scream at him about 'how dare he' and 'if you even think of leaving me I'll kill you myself.' All he could manage to say to show his appreciation was, "Sorry."

"Yeah, yeah. So you just gonna keep laying there? You're a laying in dirt person now? I mean I'm not judging, I'm just trying to get a handle on the scope of this thing you're dealing with."

Eliot shrugged.

"OK. I'll give you twenty more minutes, and the for the sake of your injury I'm at least making you turn over onto your back, got it?"

He nodded.

"All right then."

Being Margo, she grew restless after only five minutes, and Eliot decided it was time to pull himself together at least a little and figure out something for her to do. He reached out a hand and let her pull him to his feet and hand him his cane.

"I need to stay here for awhile, I think. And you need a base of operations, and since this place is pretty clearly deserted, I don't see why it won't work."

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," she told him. Then she kissed him on the cheek. "And thanks. Give me a minute and I'll get you something resembling a decent chair, then I'll get to work on that," she gestured towards the ruin of the cottage.

He nodded. "It's not our most ambitious plan, but it'll do for now."

Once he was seated in the promised chair, Eliot pulled a stack of the record books into his lap and began flipping through them. Most of the designs were just colorful pictures, like old notes from a forgotten school project, but a few sparked memories. That was the day Q told Eliot he loved him, and the design flowed from Eliot's full heart and he was so  _sure_  it was the one, and then nothing happened and he got horribly drunk and only then did he suddenly realize he hadn't said it back and so he did, weepy and inebriated, and Q told him later he hadn't known whether to laugh or cry. This one from the day Teddy took his first steps, that one from when they all three had that huge fight, followed by what would have been truly epic makeup sex except that Teddy had woken up early from his nap and they barely avoided scarring him for life. Later, this section were ones Eliot all did himself because Arielle was so sick but Q got anxious if they stopped work, so Eliot minded Teddy and did designs while Q cared for Arielle. Later still, Teddy's somewhat rough but still functional early efforts at writing down the designs for them. Much later, similar efforts by the grandkids.

Wiping at the tears that dripped down his face as he looked through the record of a life so beautiful it solved an impossible puzzle, the beginnings of a plan formed in his grief-addled mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter may have ended up skating the fine line between T and M in terms of sexytimes content, but your mileage may vary.

"I guess I really should be careful what I wish for," Penny said ruefully.

"Fuck off," Kady said, without really looking at him. Of course. She thought he was 23.

"Kady," he said, and she froze, then slowly sat up, taking in his suit.

"Penny?" She looked stricken.

"Hey."

"So that's what that feels like," Alice muttered, and that's when Penny registered the half-empty whiskey bottle and the slight slur in their voices.

"To be clear," Penny said, before Kady could say anything else, "this might not be what I expected to find, but nobody did anything wrong. Hell, not too long ago I was telling Q--"

Alice shot to her feet, stumbled, and fell against Penny, who caught her awkwardly and steered her back to the couch. After helping her sit, he perched on the coffee table in front of both women.

"Sorry, shouldn't have just mentioned him like that, I'm sure you're still hurting."

"I am!" Alice said, squaring her shoulders. "I am and I don't know why I . . . I mean it's . . . Fuck!"

Penny sighed. "OK, clearly I showed up in the middle of something complicated. Sorry again."

"Don't be," Kady said. "So what  _were_  you telling Q?"

Penny met her eyes. "That I hoped you'd find someone and be happy."

Kady clenched her jaw, and when she stood up to glare down at him, she was much steadier on her feet than Alice had been. "First of all, fuck you. Second of all, it's not that simple. Did you know they've asked me to be the knew Library Director? Do you know what it means if I say yes?"

"That's actually what I came to talk to you about. Turns out there's even more on the table than what they told you, though in their defense, they didn't know about this part."

"What part?"

"Maybe we should let you sober up a bit first. Have some coffee. Clear your head."

She scoffed.

"OK, fine. You know what happened to Our Lady?"

"Yeah, Julia told me."

"Hades isn't exactly taking it well. He's retiring, so the Underworld needs a new Lord and Lady. He wants it to be us."

Kady sat down again, her posture ramrod straight and eyebrows raised. "How?"

Penny shrugged. "He didn't give me the details, just said he can make it happen--something about belief in the roles being more relevant than the individuals  _in_  those roles. He said he can give me his power, and there's a ritual to gather up what he called Our Lady's energies and give them to you."

"And what would that mean for us? I mean, you make it sound like this is a package deal. Am I just supposed to . . . to--"

"As far as I'm concerned, you're not  _supposed_  to do anything other than what will make you happy. Take over the Library or don't, become a goddess or don't, make out with Alice or don't. I love you and I want you to be happy, whatever that means."

She jerked to her feet and stalked away from the couch, leaning against the kitchen island and keeping her back to him. "Why do you have to be like that? Why can't you be selfish and give me something to grab hold of or fight against, huh?"

"Just not wired that way. Not when it comes to you."

"I should go," Alice mumbled from the couch.

Kady whirled around. "No, you stay. Part of this is your fault," she snapped.

" _You_  kissed  _me_ ," Alice said, her face becoming even more flushed than it had been.

"I wasn't talking about that! I meant the Library bullshit," Kady retorted.

"I won't apologize for . . .  for insisting that the world acknowledge how amazing you are! Or for growing up enough to realize that I shouldn't be in charge of things just because I'm the smartest person in the room! I'm fucking  _tired_  of the world being  _wrong_ , so yeah, I spoke up and suggested something that I think would put it on the path to being a lot more right. Blame me or hate me or whatever, I'm not sorry." She crosser her arms tight across her chest and glared at Kady.

"I missed something, didn't I?" Penny said, glancing between them. "I mean, besides the obvious."

They both turned their glares on him, and he put up his hands defensively. "Sorry! Don't mind me, I'm just the dead guy who could get dragged back to my desk in the Underworld whenever my boss feels like it."

"What? No!" Kady said, walking towards him and stopping herself just short of touching distance. "We . . . I need time. Why can't they understand that? Sometimes a person just needs  _time,_ " she said, staring off into the middle distance.

"And sometimes time is what they don't have," Alice said softly. Her eyes locked with Kady's, and Penny would have felt like he was intruding, except it was then that Kady finally reached out and took his hand, twining her fingers with his.

"Maybe that's why . . . I'm just so sick of running out of time," Alice continued. "My brother, my dad, Q, hell, even  _me_. There's never the time you think there will be. So I'm doing two things at once that it feels wrong to do at the same time, but I am, and anyone who wants to judge me can go screw themselves because they haven't been through what I have. I'm grieving Q, and it hurts  _so much_  . . . and, if I'm being honest, Kady, I'm falling for you. Which I'm only saying because I think you deserve to have all the facts when you make your decision. And possibly also because I'm a little drunk."

"You always did have good taste," Penny said, grinning; Alice blushed and Kady punched him lightly in the arm. "What? Being back with you makes me feel like me again. Both of you do, actually. I like it."

"Is that why you gave up?" Kady asked. "They made you not you any more? Will that happen to me, if I go goddess?"

"I kinda think going goddess will have the opposite effect. And I'd like to think there's a difference between accepting what can't be changed and giving up. And being in the Underworld, it's not that you become  _not_  you, just that it's easy to get sort of . . . diluted. Watered down enough to do the job without wondering if it's possible to kill yourself when you're already dead. Rough edges sanded down a bit. But being Lord and Lady, we'll have to be more ourselves than we've ever been to do it right. I'm guessing."

"The gods really don't like letting you read the fine print before you sign, do they?" Alice said, words clipped with irritation. They both looked at her. "Just . . . first Julia. Now you two. It seems like there are a lot of rules they don't tell you until it's too late for you to decide not to follow them."

"Maybe," Kady said. "But on the other hand, Julia was a brand new goddess. We'd be stepping into preexisting roles."

"That have rules."

"Rules we can research. Like Our Lady. I already know a lot about her from my time with the Free Traders. Combine it with what we can dig up about Persephone, should be some pretty solid groundwork for what I will and won't be able to do if I do this, right?"

Alice looked uncomfortable. "Maybe. But that's just what humans have been able to observe, and, not to be insensitive, but wouldn't it be fair to say that one of the lessons of the Free Traders is that humans are easily misled when it comes to the gods?"

"I could always just ask Hades," Penny interrupted before things could get ugly. "He seems to like me, so maybe he'll give it to me straight. As it were."

"You know Hades gave Reynard a god-killing bullet after Our Lady depowered him?" Kady demanded. "I don't trust him."

"So we take whatever he says with a grain of salt or several. Fine by me. But I think Alice is right that we should find out more about what we'd be in for. I would have when he first brought it up, but he sent me up here as soon as I mentioned wanting to discuss things with you. Point in his favor, if you ask me."

"OK. Sounds like something that almost resembles a plan. Is there a time limit on this thing?"

"I don't know."

She let go of his hand and began pacing. "Shit. OK. Shit!" She paused and looked at Alice. "Sorry, but do you mind . . ."

"Of course not," Alice said, and retreated to a different room.

Kady began pacing again. "Talk to me," Penny said, when she showed no signs of stopping.

"I just . . . I love you. I didn't mean to be the kind of girl who falls for a guy and starts planning her whole life around him, but you made me want to do that. And then you were gone. It took me a long time, but I feel like I've finally found my feet again, found something worthwhile to do with my life, maybe. And I love you. But. I also have feelings for Alice, somehow. They're a lot less all-consuming than what I felt . . .  _feel_  . . . for you, but that's what I need right now, you know? Something, some _one_ , that's real and there but that leaves room for other things. But now there's this big cosmic option on the table, and it would mean I could do a lot of good and have you back, but it would also mean giving up what I've finally found, and--"

"Why would it mean that?" Penny interrupted.

"What?"

"Why would you have to give anything up? Hades and Persephone weren't exclusive; we wouldn't have to be, either. I mean,  _I_  would be, but that's just because you're it for me. But as far as I'm concerned you can have as many girlfriends or boyfriends or consorts or spouses or  _whatever_  as you want. I'd like to be one of them, but it's your life. Your happiness. Your choice."

She stared at him. "Seriously?"

He smiled. "Seriously."

She lunged for him, dragging him to her, and her lips were on his and it was the only heaven he'd ever need.

They were both down to their underwear when they heard the soft sound of a door closing. "Shit," Kady muttered. "Alice, get out here," she called.

Alice came, eyes on the floor, and Kady stepped towards her.

"Hey," Kady said, and gently lifted Alice's chin and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. Penny watched Alice's eyes widen and a thrill went though him as he became certain that Kady was on the brink of having all the happiness she deserved. "Want to join us?" Kady asked.

"I . . . yes. But I've never--"

"That's OK," Kady said. "I'll teach you." And she pulled Alice close and kissed her deeply and reached her hand up her skirt.

Penny went up behind Kady and kissed her neck while grinding against her in just the way he knew she liked.

"You like that?" Kady murmured softly against Alice's mouth, and Penny was sure Kady knew the answer as well as he did from Alice's blown pupils and flushed cheeks. Alice stepped back abruptly, disentangling herself from Kady's glorious fingers. "Too much?" Kady purred.

"No," Alice said breathlessly. "But I want . . . " and she dropped to her knees in front of Kady and put her hands on Kady's hips. "May I? Please? I-I don't know if I'll be any good, but I really--"

Kady cut her off by taking Alice's face in her hands and skimming her thumb over the other woman's lips. "I said I'd teach you," she reminded her, and pushed down her panties.

"I got you," Penny murmured in Kady's ear, and she leaned against him and widened her stance and Alice, with the same determined look she wore when mastering a new spell, leaned forward.

 

"Wow. Eliot, it's . . . beautiful doesn't really cover it. How did you _do_  that?" Margo asked, her hand over her heart.

"Just hard work and harder magic, really. It didn't feel like I had a choice. The only way to get up in the morning was for this."

"I'll try not to take that personally."

He sighed. "If that's how you feel, then it isn't right yet."

"What?"

"It's supposed . . . it's supposed to show what . . . never mind. But it's not right yet."

Margo swung around to stand in front of him and took his hands. "I'm starting to worry about you."

"Don't. You have your project, I have mine. What's so bad about that?"

"I don't know. It just feels like you're drifting farther and farther away from me. Like when . . . like after what happened with Mike."

Eliot let go of her hands and crossed his arms tightly across his chest. "You really think this is the same?  _Really_?"

"No, of course not. This is . . . obviously this is different. Healthier. I just don't want to lose you."

"Parse that for me."

"What?"

"What does 'losing me' mean to you, Margo? Because I'm starting to have some suspicions."

"The fuck does that mean?"

"It means I'm starting to wonder if you just expect me to be at your every beck and call for the rest of my life."

"Eliot," she said, sounding so hurt that he uncrossed his arms and pulled her into his chest.

"Sorry. Sorry. It's . . . everything. I don't want to feel this way and I thought making that," he gestured to his creation, "would make it better, but it hasn't. It didn't even turn out right."

"Parse that for me," she said, giving him a small smile.

"I don't know, exactly. But it isn't just supposed to be beautiful. It's supposed . . . oh, never mind. You'll see if I get it right."

"You want it to make other people feel what you're feeling, don't you?" Margo said shrewdly.

He shrugged, unable to admit it.

"Sweetie, even if you do that, how will it help?"

"I don't know! But it feels like what I have to do."

"OK. You let me know if I can help."

He squeezed her hand and turned his attention to his task.

What he'd done was use the old records to make new tiles--the spell that kept the old ones intact had ended when he and Q solved the thing centuries ago--in much the same way that artists sometimes used small pictures to create a large one. He'd used spellwork to shrink and merge the records in ways that created tiles in the original 15 colors.

_"All right, so 784 tiles in 15 colors. Uh, so that's 784, uh, factorial, uh, divided by--"_

_"Seriously? You're trying to calculate the beauty of all life?"_

_"Uh, well, I'm just trying to see what we're in for. There's a finite set of possible solutions, so, um . . . ok, yeah, that's a lot of zeroes."_

_"Um, how many zeroes?"_

_"Uh, to be exact?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"A shitload."_

_"Well, that's reassuring."_

_"I mean, we should be able to rig a spell to just run the permutations--"_

_"Beauty of all life, Q. You really think a spell running permutations is gonna show that?"_

_"Won't know until we try."_

_"True."_

_"Why are you so hung up on the 'beauty of all life' part, anyway?"_

_"I'm an aesthete, I can't help myself."_

_Q shook his head, smiling. "Still, never known you to be so down on shortcuts."_

_"Sometimes the only way to do a thing properly is the long way."_

_"Sure, but let's hope this isn't one of those times."_

_Eliot looked at Q, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, his hair pulled back in that too-cute-to-be-allowed way. He was still smiling at Eliot, his expression soft around the eyes despite his current, intense focus on the problem at hand. "Yeah," Eliot lied, "let's hope."_

Not that he'd wanted it to take a lifetime. Not at the time, anyway. But the advantage of time-travel, he'd reasoned, was that they could have a nice little vacation from their lives and then go right back to where they'd left them. They weren't letting anyone down or ditching their obligations, just taking a break while also accomplishing an essential aspect of the quest. Win/win. And an extra win for Eliot getting some proper alone time with Q, who was single and maybe, just maybe, could be convinced to mingle.

Be careful what you wish for, he reflected bitterly. This would all be so much easier if things had played out differently back then. If he'd kept his walls up.

Or down.

And the worst part was, he wouldn't change it. As much as it hurt, and always would, Eliot wouldn't trade one second of his time with Q.

He cast a critical eye over the design he'd made with the record tiles, the one meant to convey the deep, quiet happiness of the best parts of their life here. He thought that maybe it had, but that wasn't the whole story, was it?

This was the edited version, the one without the fear and loss and grief.

For this to work, he had to tell the truth.

He sat down, spread the chalks before him, and began a new sketch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I just wanted to mention, since the s5 trailer dropped, that this fic will be ignoring any and all s5 stuff (y'know, unless I don't finish before the season starts and something happens in an ep that I wanna use; I'm mercurial that way).

"Oh!" exclaimed an unfamiliar voice.

Eliot looked up, startled. "Margo!"

"What?" she called back.

"Why are there people here?"

"I appreciate your belief in my ability to singlehandedly overthrow an evil regime, and history suggests that I probably could, but it's gonna be a lot quicker with minions."

"Fair enough, but why are they  _here_?"

"Hard to plan a coup when I can't talk to my coconspirators."

Eliot sighed. "Fine. Just don't let them bother me."

"I wouldn't dream of it," said the man whose exclamation had alerted Eliot to the presence of strangers. "Who could ever want to hinder such," and he gestured at Eliot's partially-disassembled first attempt at exorcising everything he was feeling, apparently at a loss for words.

"See, it's not just me," Margo told him smugly.

"Maybe." Eliot turned to the man. "What does it make you feel?" he demanded.

"Oh, ah, hmm." The man studied the tiles. "Peace. Joy. Awe. It's incredible."

"Thanks, but it's not right yet."

"Well, if I may be so bold, I look forward to the next installment."

Eliot hummed noncommittally and resumed his work, tuning out the sounds of conversation from Margo and her guests. He almost felt guilty for his inability to care about Fillory's fate, but he knew, with as much certainty as he'd ever felt about anything, that he wouldn't be able to until he'd accomplished the task he'd set for himself.

He checked his notes, and placed another tile.

 

"Hey, Jules, I need to talk to you about something," Kady said, trying to hide her discomfort as she hailed Julia from the kitchen.

"OK. What's up?" Julia said, walking over to join her.

"Umm. This is. God, this is messed up, but I wanted you to hear it from me."

"Hear what?"

"I've been. Shit. The, the Library--"

"If this is about you and Alice, I'm not sure--"

"No, it's not that, I mean that's related, sort of, but this is something else. God stuff."

"Oh. Hence this whole nervous-awkward thing you have going," Julia said with a little smile.

"Hence," Kady agreed. "Hades, like, the  _god_  Hades, wants Penny and I to be the new Lord and Lady of the Underworld. Since, you know, Our Lady Underground--" Julia winced. "Yeah. And Hades doesn't want the job without her, and for some reason he thinks Penny and I should take over. So that's on the table. Along with the Library Directorship. For me, I mean."

"That's a lot," Julia said, eyebrows raised.

"Understatement. But also, if anyone might have an informed opinion about the goddess part, it would be you. So what do you think?"

Julia tilted her head in thought. "I think you'd be amazing, if you decided to do it. I think it's great that you actually get a choice. And I think the most important thing is probably how you feel about the options. Your life about you, right?"

"Yeah. I wish it all didn't feel so much like stepping off a cliff with nothing but someone else's word that I'll grow wings when I do."

Julia smiled. "There's some imagery."

"Ha ha. But seriously. And it's not even just one thing."

"Right, because you don't have to be a god to be the Library Director. Though for what it's worth I think you should definitely do that."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah. I can't think of anyone better. Go fuck up their shit from the inside. You know, if you want to."

Kady couldn't help but smile. "I don't know how the hell we're still friends after everything, but I'm really glad that we are."

"Same. Does that mean you're gonna do it?"

Kady shrugged. "Probably."

 

The passage of time didn’t feel particularly germane to Eliot’s existence. The change from day to night was relevant only in that it marked when he could and could not work on getting his own mosaic right. He slept when he collapsed from exhaustion, until Margo clocked what he was doing, threatened his life and limb, and made him an amulet for forgetting dreams, at which point he adopted a slightly more regular sleep/wake pattern. He ate when Margo brought him food, though she eventually delegated at least some meals to minions, which worked because he had no reason to wish the wrath of Margo on them, and so allowed them to complete their task of feeding the Once and Future High King’s crazy best friend.

It also seemed like there were maybe a growing number of people who came to watch him work, to exclaim over finished attempts. Eliot would rather have worked alone, but the feedback was helpful, giving him ideas for what to change for his next attempt.

“You know you’re famous, right?” Margo drawled one day over breakfast.

He glanced up from his plate. “What?”

“Yeah, all over Fillory, people are starting to talk about the artist at the mosaic, how everyone who can should come and see, especially since what you’re doing is always changing. It’s actually giving me some good cover for my little army, so thanks for that.”

“I . . . I’m not an artist. I’m just . . .”  _Possessed_. Not the best word, considering. But. Not inaccurate. He was trying to get what was inside him  _out, away_ , where it wouldn’t torment him any more.

“Just what, El?”

He shrugged helplessly. “Just me.”

Margo reached across the table and took his hand. “There’s no  _just_  about you. Never has been.”

He squeezed her hand in return. “Whatever you say, Bambi.” He couldn’t muster the energy to argue the point.

 

_Startled_  didn’t exactly begin to cover it when Kady strode into Penny’s Underworld office. “Relax, I’m fine, I just . . . I took the Directorship, OK? Haven’t decided about the god thing yet, but I hit the point of why-the-fuck-not with the human part, so. I’m here. Have you talked to Hades yet?” And she collapsed into the chair across from him, flinging her legs over the arm, like they were back in their first year at Brakebills and mostly just worrying about homework and Marina.

Penny tried to collect himself. “Yeah. He wasn’t very helpful. Basically said that gods have to wing it, same as humans, just with more power.”

“That’s  _great_ ,” she scoffed, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Yeah, I told him you wouldn’t appreciate his whole thing, but he wasn’t exactly phased,” Penny said, leaning back in his chair.

Kady's expression shifted to one Penny recognized, and with a quick cast his office door closed and locked, and she came around the desk and climbed into his lap. “This is super unprofessional,” he pointed out between kisses.

“Shut up.”

“Yes, boss,” he said, laughing when she glared at him.

God, but he'd missed her. Missed this. How lucky was he, to get a second chance at the best thing that ever happened to him?

 

Eliot had grown used to all the comings and goings at the Mosaic, and he’d gotten good at ignoring them. So it took him a moment to notice that there was something unusual about today’s gawkers. He squinted at the . . . platter? . . . the woman was holding. “Is that a  _head_?” he asked. Not that it would be the weirdest thing he’d ever seen. Not by a fucking long shot.

“Yes,” the head replied.

Eliot blinked. OK, slightly weirder.

“Orpheus, at your service,” the head continued.

He cocked his head. “Like from the musical?”

“Like the myth the musical was based on.” Eliot found himself hoping there wasn’t going to be a pop quiz. “I do like the  _Hadestown_  version, though I’m not sure the god himself does.”

“OK. You’re a talking head, I can believe you’re an ancient Greek tragic hero. Why not. Still not clear on why you’re  _here_.”

Before Orpheus could respond, Margo’s voice cut across the clearing. “Hey El, I think—is that chick carrying a fucking  _head_  on a fucking  _platter_?”

The woman turned as Margo approached. “I’m not a  _chick_ , I’m a Muse. My cousins told us one who could walk the path of Orpheus lived here, so we came to see for ourselves.”

There was a pause, in which Eliot could  _see_  Margo comprehend exactly what was going on and go from zero to pissed off in record time. “Mother _fucker_. Are you saying Eliot can save Quentin? And you’re only telling us  _now_?”

Eliot scrambled to his feet. “What are you talking about, Margo? I thought the whole point was that Orpheus  _didn’t_  save Eurydice. Sorry,” he added, turning to the head just in time to see a flash of sorrow cross its face. He though he had a pretty good idea what that felt like.

“Yeah, but you’d know not to cock out at the last second, wouldn’t you?” Margo was saying.

Something like hope flared dangerously in his chest.  _Look, Q, my very own quest. Don't be jealous, I don't think this one's going to be much fun, but I’ll be brave enough this time, love, I swear_. “Is she right?” he asked the Muse. “Are you telling me I can bring Q back?”

“Your work here, and the effect it has had on others, means you will get a chance to try,” she answered.

“My . . . my work? No, wait I know this one,” he said as he saw Margo start to roll her eyes. “You’re saying what I’ve been doing with the Mosaic is somehow on par with Orpheus’ singing?”

The Muse inclined her head in assent.

“Hang on,” Margo cut in. “Isn’t portability gonna be an issue? With the Mosaic stuff, I mean.”

The Muse shrugged. “We’re just the messengers. The details are up to you.”

“It’s fine, Margo, I’ll bring my notebook,” Eliot said quickly, heart racing. Everything felt unreal, good shit like this didn’t happen to him, he was actually going to get to  _fix it_ , make Q be  _alive again_  and it didn’t matter that this quest was on record as impossible, because  _fuck_  possible, he could and would do  _anything_  as long as Q got to be alive at the end of it.

He felt Margo’s eyes on him. “I shouldn’t even try to talk you out of this, should I?” she said ruefully.

“Talk me . . .  _no_. Why—?”

“Because even though it's been months I feel like I just got you back, and fucking around with gods has never gotten any of us anything good. So you come back, you hear me?” Her voice was fierce and raw and her eyes were wet, and he stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands.

“I’ll do my best. I really will. You . . . to be honest, you’re probably what’s kept me alive since . . . since I came back. You finish getting your kingdom back, I’ll go get Q, and we’ll meet back here 300 years ago. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, smiling up at him through her tears.

He kissed her forehead before turning to Orpheus and the Muse. “So. What do I need to do, exactly?"

 

"I hate bureaucracy," Kady groaned, letting her head clunk down onto the pile of forms on her  _desk_  in her  _office_ , because those were things she had now. "Do you think I can forbid bureaucratic bullshit if I become a goddess?" she asked.

Alice's lips quirked slightly upwards where she sat across from Kady. "Technically yes, but then you'd have to deal with the fallout."

"I'm having a hard time imagining it being as bad as all this."

"You don't think you might be being a bit overdramatic?"

Kady glared at her. In her mind, she felt the decision she'd been struggling with solidify. "You know what, fuck it. I'm . . . yeah, fuck it." She had good instincts--there were worse ways to choose, even for things like this. Maybe  _especially_  for things like this.

"You want to elaborate on that?" Alice said, making a note on one of the forms, a smile still in her eyes even through her look of concentration. God, she was cute.

"Fuck it, I'm gonna be a goddess."

Alice glanced up sharply. "I'm not sure that's--" but then she froze. Completely still, even more than during the Beast's first attack. Kady had a brief moment to be surprised at the clarity of the memory, considering everything that had happened since, before--

"Hello, Kady. It's nice to finally meet," said the man suddenly standing next to Alice.

Kady took a deep breath. "You're Hades, aren't you?" He nodded. She sunk into the the calm that made her a battle magician, the calm where fear could be put into a box for later and she could be steel, ice, fire, sending death with her hands and her voice. "Unfreeze Alice. We can have this conversation in front of her."

He sighed. "If you insist."

"--the best decision-making--Jesus!" she exclaimed, startling in her seat when she noticed Hades.

"Not quite."

"Hades," Kady supplied for Alice, whose eyes widened slightly, but otherwise gave no sign of whatever shock or fear she felt. "I guess he heard me," Kady guessed.

"I did," he answered smoothly. "I've been waiting for you to stop fucking around," his glance cut to Alice, who blushed even as her eyes flashed in outrage, "and get on with it. And now, it seems, you are. So shall we?"

"What, right this second? I was kind of in the middle of--" she glanced down at the mess of paperwork on her desk and acknowledged, "--some very boring shit, actually, but that's not the point."

"And what is?"

"First off, it's a little insulting that you're calling all the work I've been doing 'fucking around.'" Even if he did seem to know that in between blowing up the pipes, opening access to the various library branches, emptying the Poison Room, and generally stripping the Library of its ability to be a universe-dominating fascist regime, she and Alice had been making out and occasionally fucking in the various stacks. "And second, popping into the literal middle of a conversation and expecting me to drop everything isn't a great look."

"You say that as if you think I care. I don't. I simply don't want all the work Persephone and I put into the Underworld to go to waste. So. Are you ready?" His voice was clipped, and Kady decided she probably shouldn't push her luck any further, except for one thing.

"Can Alice come?"

Hades sighed. "I suppose."

And just like that, the three of them were in Penny's office.

"Uh, hey?" he said, looking up.

"Kady is on board, and we all know you'll follow where she goes, so it's time for the ritual. Let's go," Hades said.

"Wha--" Penny started to say, but they were already somewhere else. Outdoors, with trees and grass and something that looked way too much like an altar.

Hades knelt and laid a hand in the grass. "Here," he said softly. "Here is where they murdered her," and Kady was suddenly a lot less pissed at him. God knew, he was handling himself a lot better than she had when Penny died.

Speaking of. “You don’t have to do this just because I am,” Kady said, turning to Penny and taking his hand.

He smiled and shrugged and fuck, he was so  _cute_  sometimes it was  _unreal_. “Hades is right. Where you go, I go.”

What did she even say to that? She looked around for Alice, and saw her watching intently as Hades conjured ingredients and arranged them for the ritual.

"So this is just happening? Right now?" Kady asked, and it took effort not to drop Penny's hand so she could cross her arms across her chest; she settled for a hand on her hip.

"Yes," Hades replied without looking up. And before any of them could respond, he began to chant.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incoming _Hadestown_ references. Sorry not sorry. And if you haven't ever listened to the soundtrack, go forth to Spotify and treat yourself. But be prepared for feels, because "It's a sad tale, it's a tragedy/It's a sad song/It's a sad song/We're gonna sing it anyway."

Given that it was a hot, sunny summer day in Greece, the cold, clammy mist that rolled in as soon as Eliot waded into the Acheron river suggested that Orpheus' intel was correct. At least so far.

It had all been a little surreal since the moment he'd asked what he'd have to do. Do to _get Q back_. Orpheus told him, then told him to gather his things,  _now_ , because oh by the way one of the rules of this quest is that once you know about it you don't get time to prepare and overthink, you either go or lose your chance forever. So Eliot gathered, hugged Margo, and now he was here, and alone, wading in a creepy river.

The fog was so thick he could barely see his hand if he held it out in front of him.  _Very on brand_  was his nearly cheerful thought. He knew better than to say  _is this all you've got_  aloud, he wasn't a total idiot. But seriously, was this all they had?

Which was about when he started to see the creepy shapes in the fog. And hear them make creepy,  _hungry_  noises.

So there was that.

But he did as Orpheus had told him: held aloft his book of mosaic sketches and kept on walking.

Except the menacing shapes were getting clearer.

_Fuck_. He didn't want . . . confirming what Margo already knew was one thing. Spelling it out, no talking around it, no sideways references, just  _saying_ it, even to a bunch of revenants who wouldn't let him through unless he did, was another thing entirely.

_Don't you cock out on the front walk_  said the Margo who lived inside him, in his head and his heart.  _I won't_  he thought back.  _For Q, I won't_.

So Eliot took a deep breath and said, "I'm here to rescue Quentin Coldwater, the man I love. It's an Orpheus deal, and I have it from the head himself that you have to let me through, so fuck off."

The figures in the mist didn't retreat, but they didn't get any closer or clearer or louder either, so he supposed it must have worked.

_The man I love_. Present, past, and future tense.

And now he’d gone and said it out loud.

Yeah, sure, the whole walking into the underworld thing was a bit of a flashing neon sign, but it’s not like he’d ever been particularly subtle with his actions.

The words, though. The words were another matter entirely. He’d said them now, in this timeline. He would say them as many times as it took to get Q out of the Underworld and back to life, and then he would be brave and say them again after that.

Maybe by then he’d feel more deserving of Quentin’s big, brave heart.

Several minutes went by, the only sounds the sloshing of the water as he waded and the noises from the creatures. Eliot's teeth had just began to chatter from the cold when a new shape emerged from the mist.

Poling along on a flat barge was a large, filthy, bearded man with . . . huh. And here Eliot had thought that when Orpheus said "burning eyes" he was being poetic.

"You shouldn't be here," the Ferryman said, his voice a rumbling growl. "This is a place of the dead." His left hand strayed to the axe at his belt.

Eliot swallowed. "You're Charon, right?" The Ferryman nodded. "I can pay. Orpheus said that as long as I can pay, you'd take me."

"Oh, fuck's sake." Charon rolled his eyes and held out his hand, rubbing his fingers together impatiently. Eliot quickly removed the gold coin he'd brought and passed it over. Charon bit it, grunted, and pocketed it before once more extending his hand and hauling Eliot up onto the ferry.

"I suppose you think you'll be different than all the other deluded fucks who've tried this," Charon said as he lifted his pole.

"That's the plan." Eliot just managed to refrain from asking if Charon didn't get breaks for things like bathing or if he was just really committed to the aesthetic he had going on. Best not to antagonize your Uber to the underworld and all that. "How would you know whether they succeed or fail anyway? I thought we walked up and out."

"You're all the same, you all think you're special, that you deserve to be the exception to the basic fact that the universe is callous and unfair and loads of people die in ways other than peacefully of old age."

_"I got so_ old _."_

_Q turned towards him, expression shocked and stricken from the flood of memories. "You died."_

_"I died," he repeated, and he thought distantly that it must have been a peaceful slipping away, that death, because all his impressions of the final decade were so calm and steady, a simple life of routine with his partner, filled with the kind of quiet joy he'd always assumed was for other people. Never for him. Yet here he was, remembering it._

"Oh, I know I'm not special, and I know better than most that the universe is callous and unfair. But Quentin is special. Objectively. He's saved multiple worlds multiple times, arguably the whole universe. And he did it while part of his brain told him he was worthless and everything was pointless. If that's not special, I don't know what is."

_And that's only part of why I love him_ Eliot didn't say _. Yeah, I love the determination to do what's right and fix what's broken even if it's on a cosmic fucking scale. But I also love his complete lack of dress sense and the way he doesn't know how to love anything or any_ one _by halves even when he should and the way his default mode of being is adorably stuttery and awkward and that from the very beginning he took me as I am and didn't mind that I was always touching him and just started doing it back as if it didn't_ do _things to me to not put all of myself all over all of him just all the time and okay, ferry man, you caught me, I'm not here because Q is special to the universe, I'm here because he's special to_ me _and he should know. He should know that it feels like my heart and lungs were carved out of my chest the moment Margo told me he was dead and I haven't been able to_ breathe _. He should know that what I feel is more important than my fear, or all the times he was a self-righteous dick because that was easier than the possibility of failure or insignificance, or anything else that was ever wrong between us. He should know that the only thing that matters more to me than a chance to get loving him right this time is living in a world where he's alive somewhere being Quentin Coldwater in all his awkward, nerdy, beautiful glory._

Charon looked at him like his terrifying eyes could see everything Eliot was thinking. "That's the kind of special that's more likely to end bad, not less. How many heroes you heard of who rode off into the sunset and never got dragged back into the mess of it all? It's just the way things are."

"Then why keep the loophole?" Eliot asked.

"That's above my pay grade. Maybe to give you idiots hope. Maybe the gods get some sick entertainment from watching you try. I don't know, but it's not how I'd do it."

"Lucky me that you aren't in charge, then."

"Maybe. But historically, I see the ones who fail sooner rather than later. You wanna call that luck, fine. Not the word I'd use."

Eliot was inclined to agree with the general principle, but now that he was one of the stupid fucks with a heart full of hope, staking his happiness on the chance to navigate a random loophole in the cosmic order, he hoped that it was more than the gods' caprice that left it open.

And actually, fuck that, he was a  _magician_. His whole life was navigating loopholes in the cosmic order, and he was good at it. So good he'd been acing his classes at Brakebills despite being at least a little drunk most of the time.

Not to mention becoming High King of a magical kingdom designed not for functionality but to entertain a chaos deity with the attention span of a toddler on a sugar high. He'd somehow managed to be good at that too, even if the experience did come with certain interpersonal failures and regrets.

In fact, all things considered, rising to the occasion was one of Eliot's most consistent strengths. Especially when doing so sent a satisfying  _fuck you_  to the people who underestimated him.

As long as the occasion was task-based and not, just for example, admitting the nature and depth of his feelings for the person who'd just dropped their heart in his lap.

For example.

But this  _was_  a task, a task that, if completed successfully, would allow him to fix some of those big glaring awful failures to be honest about his feelings.

Charon could keep his cynical armor; Eliot supposed he must have seem some major shit over the centuries. Eliot was going to hope, and rise, and once he had Q back he'd count himself lucky every single day to have been given the opportunity to do so.

The bottom of the ferry scraped gently against the bank.

"Last chance to turn back," Charon said.

"No thanks," Eliot said, stepping out of the boat. "Not without him."

"Suit yourself . . . I don't think I caught your name?"

Eliot opened his mouth, but stopped himself just in time. "Nice try, but even I know that one. 'You're on the lam, you're on the run, don't give your name you don't have one,'" he quoted.

Charon grunted. "Fair enough. Off you go, then." And in no time at all he and his boat had faded back into the mist.

Eliot turned towards the yawning darkness of the way into the Underworld and stepped forward, singing softly to himself. " _Wait for me, I'm coming. Wait, I'm coming with you. . ._ "

 

" _I'm not connected to anything_ ," Kady remembered Julia sobbing in Blackspire after she used up her power replacing the keys Alice destroyed. Too much had happened too quickly for her to ever find out what Jules meant.

Now she knew.

Penny was right: she felt more  _herself_  than she had since . . . ever, really. She’d always been beholden, or searching, or desperate.

When Hades finished the ritual, for the first time in her life, she simply  _was_. Was complete and centered in herself.

Was connected to parts of the universe she hadn't even known existed until a moment ago.

It was heady and dizzying and overwhelming and mind-blowing. Speaking of mind-blowing . . .

Not long ago, she would have launched herself at Penny by turning towards, running, and jumping up to wrap herself around him. Now, she simply thought herself to the other end of the thrumming connection between them, and there she was. All the new feelings that came with being a goddess were building up inside her, and she was very sure that her favorite way of releasing feelings hadn't changed a bit.

Penny returned her kisses with equal enthusiasm, and she grinned against his lips. Somehow, inexplicably, it was even  _better_  than it was before.

Like how the instant she decided they were both wearing too many clothes, they simply weren't.

And it was with perfect clarity that she heard Hades say, "Oh, for fuck's sake," and then felt him leave.

In the same moment, she felt a spike of simultaneous embarrassment and desire from Alice, and stilled, turning to look towards the other woman, who stood fifteen feet away.

Carefully, experimentally, she pressed a thought like a kiss to Alice's neck, and smiled like the cat that ate the canary when she gasped and Kady's awareness split without diminishing; in one part there was her and Penny's bodies, pressed together but not yet quite joined, and in another was Alice and the body of her mind with which she touched her.

It was exquisite.

"What do you think, Quinn?" she purred, making Alice feel it as though Kady wrapped her arms around her from behind and breathed the question in her ear before nipping the lobe.

Alice arched against the sensation. "Do it again," she said. "Do  _more_ ," she added fiercely.

_I will_ , she murmured into Alice's mind. A wicked, tantalizing idea came to her. Trust me?

Alice nodded, and Kady gave Alice the sensation of Kady's thigh pressed between Alice's legs from behind while her arms tightened, pinning Alice's in place.  _Watch and wait your turn_ she breathed into Alice's ear, and reveled in the hitch in Alice’s breathing.

“Don’t torture the poor woman,” Penny said.

Kady laughed and kissed him. “Don’t worry,” she said as she began to move, “what I have in mind is just the opposite.”

 

“In hindsight, it’s an interesting choice for your first act as Queen of the Underworld,” Alice said as she finished getting dressed. “Since sex is usually associated with life.”

Kady shrugged. “Yeah, but Persephone was Queen of the Underworld  _and_  the goddess of spring. Besides, if it wasn’t part of my purview, I doubt I would have been able to do what I did.”

Alice flushed. “Fair point."

"Oh good, you've finished with the theatrics." Hades was back.

"If that's what you wanna call it," said Penny, and the easy expression on his face, coupled with his pre-Library outfit, made Kady feel warm all over.

"It is," Hades said brusquely. "Come, I need to introduce you to your underlings, and acquaint you with a matter that will require your direct attention."

"Just like that?" Kady asked, narrowing her eyes.

For a moment, she thought Hades looked something akin to chagrined. "I'm usually aware of these things well in advance, but in my focus on getting everything ready for you and Penny to take over, I missed the signs."

"Of?" Kady prompted.

Hades glanced at Alice. "This is Underworld business. I realize you may well tell her later, but for now she needs to go."

Alice crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, and watching her silent challenge made Kady want to lay her down and fuck her right there. Again.

"You're still a human," Hades said. "Some things aren't for you to know."

Kady rolled her eyes but took Alice's hand. "We'll humor the has-been for now," she said, and with a thought they were back in her office in the Library. "I'll see you soon," she promised, and kissed Alice deeply before rejoining Penny and Hades.

"Come," he said, and this time, instead of being dragged along with no understanding of how it worked or where she was going, Kady easily followed Hades down what to her new goddess senses was a clear path to one of her domains.

The knowledge still didn't prepare her for the way the throne room they landed in  _resonated_  with her very being. Between her and the Underworld was a symphony of power and possibility, a dance woven between their essences. She glanced at Penny and became aware of a similar resonance, one that harmonized with her own. Their eyes met and she was sure her expression mirrored the wonder on his face.

"Yes," said Hades. " _This_  is what your new existence means. This place, and its occupants, are your responsibility. In return, you have power and strength and a connection with reality beyond mortal understanding. Speaking of, the matter I referenced earlier. You are familiar with the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice?"

They both nodded.

"It will come as no surprise to you at this juncture that the myth is based in actual events. What we do our best to keep quiet, however, is that the way of Orpheus remains open to those who meet certain criteria. One such person walks it now, and will be here very soon to make his petition. If you try, you should be able to feel it, the deliberate, well-regulated gaps in the warp and weft of this place that make the path for such fools."

"Then why not fix it?" Penny asked. "If you think it's stupid, why not close the loophole?"

"Because Persephone made it, and would not allow me to unmake it. If it had ever caused a major disruption in the balance of things, I would have been able to do something, but she knew what she was doing, and it hasn't. The power now rests with Kady--to leave it in place, or put an end to such quests."

Kady closed her eyes and extended her awareness and--yes,  _there_. "He's so full of hope, and so sad," she said, eyes still closed. "He knows what he's doing is impossible, and he has to do it anyway because the alternative is unbearable." She opened her eyes. "I know the feeling." Penny took her hand. "The loophole stays."

Hades sighed. "You truly are her successor. Very well. I'll leave it to your advisors and underlings to go over the details. Good luck."

 

A short while later, Penny and Kady sat on their thrones, waiting for the petitioner's arrival. Soon a tall, lanky figure, limping and bloody, clothes torn and missing a shoe, entered.

"Someone should tell the Dog Whisperer about your many-headed safety hazard," he called.

"Oh,  _shit_ ," Kady and Penny chorused softly.

It was Eliot.


End file.
